Her Little White Lie (19 page)

Heat flooded through Dante’s veins at the thought of a night alone with Paige. Not the best moment to be flooded with heat, all things considered. “One of your hotels?”

Don laughed. “Naturally.”

“Oh,” Paige said. “I don’t know. I …”

Mary put her hand on Paige’s. “I know you don’t know us, but Dante does. And we’re Ana’s grandparents now. We want to be involved.”

The statement made Paige look even more sallow than she had all day. “Right. Of course.”

Dante handed Ana over to Mary, and Ana stirred, pinning her sleep-clouded eyes on the older woman. But she didn’t shriek or make a fuss. That was one thing he found fascinating about Ana. She seemed to make instant assessments about people and then decide how to react according to that assessment.

In so many ways, she could have been his daughter. She was decisive. Focused.

The thought doused the fire that had been raging through him, killed it off with a streak of ice. She wasn’t his daughter. She never would be.

Just like Paige wasn’t really his wife. And they shouldn’t
be. For their own sakes, it was a blessing they were not. And he could only hope that there would be no other child. That Paige wasn’t pregnant.

He ignored the faint, treacherous feeling of hope that burned in him. The hope that she was. That he could keep her with him.

No. He would go on their mini honeymoon and enjoy their wedding night. But the fact that they’d signed a document didn’t change anything. It didn’t make any of it real. It didn’t make any of it possible.

Forgetting that wasn’t an option.

The suite was stunning. And Paige was shaking.

She’d hardly said two words to Dante for a week, and now they were going to get naked again, and have amazing sex, which was great. Except that sex with him had such a high cost to her emotions and while she was willing to pay it, she did have to gear up for it.

“That was very nice of your mom and dad,” she said.

A muscle twitched in Dante’s cheek. “It was.”

“So this is your dad’s hotel?” She knew he called his parents by their first names, but she felt awkward about it.

She walked across the sleek, modern room, to the window that provided a view of the lights in the Gaslamp Quarter. The city was glowing, still alive in spite of the late hour. And yet up in the top of the hotel, everything seemed so distant. Unreal.

It felt like an alternate reality up there. Both safer for its separation from the world and more dangerous for it.

She turned around to face Dante and her heart crumpled. He looked so perfect in his tux, his tie open, the top buttons on his shirt undone. He looked less than perfectly pressed for once. As if the day might have actually pierced that armor he valued so highly.

And she knew why now. She saw it clearly. What the press took as aloofness, a kind of unfeeling detachment, she knew
had been a survival technique. To protect the little boy who had felt too much.

The boy whose world had broken before his eyes one horrible day, at the hands of the man who should have loved him. Should have loved his mother.

She also saw, clearly, that Dante’s parents loved him. That Don and Mary had deep, real affection for the boy they’d brought into their home as a teenager. And she saw that Dante didn’t realize it. That he kept himself from returning it, or at least showing that he did.

Still protecting himself. Still guarding himself against pain.

She recognized it clearly. It was a grand scale version of what she’d done for most of her life. Don’t care, don’t hurt. Don’t try, don’t fail.

“Champagne?” she asked, walking over to the full kitchen area in the suite, touching the top of the bottle that was sitting on ice, two crystal flutes set out for the newlyweds.

“Why not?” he asked. “It seems a traditional thing to do on one’s wedding night.”

“Yes,” she said. “And fitting, since you promised me the rest of the night would be traditional, too.”

He looked down, a lock of dark hair falling forward. “I did. And I must apologize for that. For the way I treated you before I left.”

“I’m over it, Dante.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “I behaved like an ass and I deserve for you to be annoyed with me.”

“I’m not, though. Since that first night with you I didn’t have any intention of going to bed alone on our wedding night, so your demand was well in line with my plans.”

He glowered at her, so serious and irritated she nearly laughed at him. “You’re impossible, Paige.”

“Yeah, I’ve been told that.” She took the champagne out of the bucket and worked the cork, wincing when it popped out. She poured two glasses and held one out to him. “I’ve
been told I’m quite impossible, in fact, but I never seem to change. And there was once a man who told me that maybe the problem isn’t with me, but with other people.”

He took the glass from her hand and held it up in salute, and she did the same.

“To your impossibleness,” he said.

“I’ll drink to that.” She took a sip of the dry, bubbly liquid, her eyes never leaving his. “You know what’s funny?”

“What?” he asked, leaning against the counter.

“The other times I’ve been called impossible … it wasn’t because I was stubborn. Actually, I’ve spent my whole life being very, very not stubborn. I was impossible because I wouldn’t apply myself. Because I never listened when my mother told me I should try harder. Or, rather because I stopped listening at a certain point.”

“Explain.”

“You know I’m going to. At length.”

“Yes, I do know that about you.”

“Anyway, the thing is, it became clear very early on that school was hard for me. My brother and sister, they were brilliant. My sister in academics, my brother in academics and in sports. They were stars. From day one they were like hometown heroes. My sister would go to national spelling bees and science fairs. My brother brought the high school football team to the state championships and scored the winning touchdown. My sister was the valedictorian of her graduating class.”

She took another sip of her champagne and tried to stop the tears that were forming. It shouldn’t hurt. Not after all this time.

“So then there was me. And I struggled to pay attention in class. To pull average grades. And it wasn’t good enough. I was accused of not trying when I was. And I did try. I tried to do well. I tried to make friends and … and fit in. But it didn’t work. And so I just … stopped. Because if I didn’t care, then it didn’t hurt so much. You remember I told you about the
braces incident? That was another one of those moments. If I laughed with everyone else and made it a big joke, it was funny that I cut the hell out of a guy’s tongue during my first kiss. If I could just laugh, when I got a flier handed to me in the halls that had a picture of me, covering my chest, with eggs on my face, well, then maybe I could be part of the joke instead of just being the butt of it. But I shut down inside. And I stopped trying.”

Dante frowned, his dark eyebrows drawing together. “I have never looked at you and seen a woman who wasn’t trying, Paige. Never.”

“Not now,” she agreed. “I’ve been changing, slowly over the past three years, since I moved. Since I got the job at Colson’s and I saw that I could be really good at something other than just splashing paint on a canvas.”

“People make a lot of money splashing paint on a canvas,” he said drily.

“Yes, but I wasn’t. And no one thought it had any kind of value, not in my family. Not in my community.”

“Blind and stupid,” he said, his tone harsh. “You have a gift for color and design. I still don’t understand how they couldn’t see it.”

His anger on her behalf warmed her. Caused a little trickle of satisfaction to filter through her veins. But that wasn’t why she was telling him about herself, about what she’d been through.

“And then there was Ana,” she said. “Suddenly another person was depending on me caring. On me making a success. Throwing myself into it and not giving a thought to failure. Because I couldn’t afford to think of failing. For Ana, it’s been a pursuit of success at all costs and suddenly I realize that I can achieve things. With your help, I grant you. But …”

“But it was your bullheaded stubbornness that got me to help,” he said.

“And that was something I didn’t know I had.” She looked into her drink, watched the bubbles rise to the surface as she
picked her next words carefully. “But I had to be willing to stop trying to protect myself. I had to be willing to be hurt in order to grab anything worthwhile.”

His expression flattened, light leaching from his dark eyes. “I’m happy you were able to do that.”

So, he wasn’t going to understand what she was saying. Or he was going to pretend that he didn’t.

But she’d changed. And just because it wasn’t easy, didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try. Because whether or not Dante ever loved her, Dante deserved to feel loved. He deserved to be healed. And he was worth any level of pain or disappointment she might face.

Because he was worth something. Everything.

Of all the realizations she’d had about Dante, the most terrifying, heart-wrenching one, was that her enigmatic, alpha boss, didn’t see himself as valuable. He saw himself as a liability. As a roadblock to the happiness of others. As a danger, in many ways.

She would change that. No matter what happened between them in the end, she was determined to change that. She wasn’t going to be the happy-go-lucky Paige Harper of three years ago. She wasn’t even going to be the Paige she’d been a few weeks ago.

She was stronger now. She knew she had power. She knew she could succeed.

She set her glass on the counter, walked back over to the window, sensing Dante’s gaze following her movements.

With the curtains open, the lights from the city casting a pale glow on the living area, Paige reached behind her back and gripped the tab on her zipper, sliding it down slowly, the fabric parting, exposing her back to the cool air.

The straps on the gown loosened, and she pushed them off her shoulders, the gown slipping down her body and pooling in a silken mass at her feet. She stepped away from it, keeping her back to him.

The strapless, lace undergarment she was wearing pushed
her breasts up high, contoured her waist, ending at her hips, just above the white, lace thong that barely covered anything. She left her stilettos on, bright pink and shocking, with glitter dusting the heels.

Confidence—unfamiliar, empowering—burned inside of her, along with a steady pulse of desire that beat a rhythm through her entire body, centered at the apex of her thighs.

“I can tell you something else I want,” she said. “Something I’m determined to have.”

“What’s that?” he asked, his voice a low growl.

“You. Tonight, I’m going to have you.”

“Do you think so?” His voice was closer now, feral. Arousing.

“I know it.” She turned to face him, and the lean, hungry look on his face gave total evidence of her victory.

“My little innocent has become a seductress?”

“I always have been,” she said. “I just needed to find her. She was always there. But you helped bring her out. Because you … knowing you, has changed me.”

She could see it, clear and quick, a flash of fear in his eyes. “Have I?” he asked, his voice rough.

“Yes. You’ve helped me find my power. My peace with myself.”

“How did I do that?” he asked.

“By being you.”

She took a step toward him, her heart thundering, the need burning in her like fire overtaking any insecurity that might threaten to ruin the moment. Her moment. His moment.

She reached behind her back and started to undo the hooks and eyes on the corset bra, letting it fall to the floor, her breasts bare for his inspection.

He was watching her, motionless as stone, his body tense, his expression blank. But there was a wealth of information in that blank slate. She knew him well enough to know that now. That the less she saw, the more there was. The more desperately he was trying to hide. To keep control.

She wouldn’t let him have it. Not tonight. She wanted more. More than their first night, more, even, than the night in the kitchen. She wanted it all. All of him.

She hooked her fingers in the sides of her panties and tugged them down her legs, kicking them to the side. Then she closed the distance between them, pressing her body against his, still fully clothed in his tux. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to his lips.

“Handy thing about the high heels,” she said. “I don’t have to get up on my tiptoes. But I do think they leave me a little overdressed.” She toed them off and shoved them out of the way. “And you are way overdressed.”

Paige put her hands on his shirt and concentrated on undoing every last button, shoving it, along with his suit jacket, onto the floor.

“Relax, Dante,” she whispered. “Don’t you ever relax?”

“Show me a man who can relax while you’re doing this to him. He does not exist.” His voice was strangled, affected.

She planted her hand on his chest, feeling the heat of flesh and muscle beneath her palm. “I don’t know very many women who could relax with you looking like this. I know I’m not exactly relaxed. Just incredibly turned on.”

A groan escaped his lips and she captured it with hers, sliding her tongue over his, pressing her breasts to his bare skin. She pulled away from him, kissing his neck, tasting the salt of his skin, before traveling lower to his chest.

She traveled lower, lavishing attention on each ridge of muscle, his stomach contracting beneath her lips, his fingers tangling in her hair, working at the pins that held it in place.

She stopped at the waistband of his pants, tracing the line where flesh met fabric with the tip of her tongue. Then she started loosening his belt, pulling it slowly through the loops, watching the effect each movement had on her captive.

The muscles in his stomach jumped as her hand brushed the hardness of his cloth-covered erection, his eyes like black
fire, burning into her, his attention rapt on her. There was no disinterest now. No flatness. Nothing veiled, nothing hidden.

She pushed his pants down his lean hips, leaving him gorgeous, naked and aroused for her exploration. She circled his length with her hand, testing the weight of him, the hardness. She squeezed him gently and earned a rough growl of pleasure. So uncivilized. So uncontrolled. So everything she wanted from him.